QlikView for iPad supports native iPad functionality to provide a powerful, intuitive and interactive mobile business intelligence experience. Its iPad-specific features include:

• Multi-Touch Analytics – Touch, pinch or swipe to select data points.
• Coverflow – Flip through relevant business analysis, make a new selection and those changes are instantly reflected throughout.
• High-Definition Graphics – View the sharpest visualizations at native iPad screen resolutions.
• Portrait and Widescreen Support – Uses iPad’s accelerometer to auto-sense the device’s orientation and shifts QlikView’s interface to match.
• GPS-enabled (iPad 3G only) – Automatically detect geographic location to select localized information such as customer sales, service or inventory data as users approach a customer or supplier facility.
• Integrated Analytics Sharing – Touch the email button on the upper-right of any screen view and share your analyses with anyone.

Highlights also include:

• Associative Search – Touch the search box, enter a few letters of your search criteria and watch a comprehensive search selection instantly appear. Select your search word or phrase, and then tap anywhere in the results on the screen to see connections and relationships between data residing in different applications, systems, organizations, and regions.
• All Your Data – QlikView for iPad can combine data from any number of sources with high performance. This provides the fastest way to gain insight into how different parts of a business relate. QlikView achieves this by associating data from any source, such as: transactional systems like Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com; traditional data warehouses like Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion; and databases like SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL.
• Advanced Visualization – QlikView for iPad gives users the ability to see information in charts, graphs and tables, as well as the ability to interact with those visual analytics in real time. Everything in QlikView for iPad can be tapped, and every touch provides a new view of the underlying data instantly.
• Security – Comprehensive access controls means QlikView for iPad users only see what they are authorized to view.

The value of interactive, dynamic analytics delivered with a few screen taps can’t be underestimated.

QlikView for iPad is the latest member of QlikView’s comprehensive family of mobile products. QlikView is available for free, as a native mobile application for all QlikView customers. In addition to the iPad, QlikView supports the most popular consumer mobile platforms and devices, such as:

• Apple iPhone 3GS, 3G, original iPhone, and iPod Touch
• Android phones, including: HTC Hero, HTC Magic, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid, Nexus One, Acer Liquid, and Sony Ericsson X10
• Java Mobile Client-based phones, including: the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Storm, and Nokia S60

QlikView pioneered in-memory business intelligence and continues to offer a totally different approach to business intelligence that delivers ease of use and rapid deployment that speeds time to critical business answers.  Inside Info is the largest and most experienced QlikView business intelligence solution provider in Australia.

Gartner comments on the evolution of business intelligence in the report: “Organisations are rapidly embracing the idea of providing data to end users and empowering them with an ability to navigate and visualize the data in a “surf and save” mode as an alternative to a report-only architecture. Threatened by the success of these vendors (and adding to their credibility), traditional BI platform vendors are attempting to imitate them with easy-to-use interactive visualization alternatives often incorporating in-memory technology. This imitation, coupled with a growing recognition by user organizations that data discovery tools can be used as full-functioned BI platforms for a broader range of BI platform capabilities and use cases (beyond rapid prototyping), justifies the significant move of these vendors from the Visionaries to the Challengers quadrant.”

QlikView applications can be tailored by Inside Info & specially optimised for mobile devices to deliver complete, interactive drill down capability to a mobile workforce where users click through line items on a list box or chart to get the answers they need, going deeper than regional or product data common with most other approaches.  QlikView’s other features include location awareness using GPS delivering automatic local customer sales, service or inventory data as reps approach a customer facility.  QlikView’s ’search’ feature also allows users to quickly zero in on specific needs down to a name or SKU.

QlikView has been available on Java mobile, Blackberry and iPhone clients since July 2009 and is now also the first business intelligence application that can be built on the Android operating system, announced this month.

Google launched their new smart phone built on Android at the beginning of January, which has become increasingly popular with mobile manufacturers.  The Android platform takes full advantage of QlikView’s intuitive, interactive and flexible interface. QlikView for Android was developed in partnership with TAT, The Astonishing Tribe AB, who is well known for specializing in mobile user interfaces for companies like Google and Spotify. Created on the TAT Cascades platform the application is multi-touch driven and supports location based searches with GPS support. A video demo of QlikView for Android is available on You Tube.

“IDC’s research has showed that there is a growing trend in Australia and New Zealand towards businesses giving customer facing employees BI tools to access timely and accurate information, to enhance customer experiences and to develop cross-selling opportunities,” said Louise Francis, Senior Market Analyst – Global Retail Insights, IDC.  “As a result IDC expects simple, intuitive applications, such as QlikView, will become increasingly popular with customers, particularly in the mid market.”

An IDC survey sponsored by QlikTech revealed that QlikView customers achieve significantly higher satisfaction with their BI systems than general BI users. When asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 5, 96% of QlikView users indicated the top three levels of satisfaction. This compares very favourably with results from IDC’s 2008 survey (carried out in conjunction with InfoWorld) where 70% of general BI users indicated the top three levels of satisfaction with their BI implementations.  The survey found that QlikView is a BI customer favourite because of its average return on investment (ROI) of 186%[1] and a total cost of ownership (TCO) that is 53%[2] of other BI solutions.

QlikView Attains Highest Customer Loyalty Score in Software Industry
IDC found that the significant success QlikView customers are experiencing has resulted in many of them recommending it to others. Net Promoter score is a key measure of customer loyalty based on the question, “How likely is it that you would recommend a product/service to a friend or colleague?” QlikView ranked higher than the previous leader in the 2009 Net Promoter Score benchmark tests in the “Technology: Computer Software” category according to SatMetrix, the creator of the Net Promoter methodology[3].

Two other reports also found similar results:

• Aberdeen Group named QlikView the sole “Champion” in the 2009 Aberdeen AXIS for BI/Performance Management report, applying its AXIS methodology through a customer-centric assessment tool.   As stated in the report, “QlikTech customers have consistently reported high praise and satisfaction with the company and its products, and are most likely to have achieved value from the purchase of the software for performance management projects. The software interface is known for its intuitiveness and this means that end-users are likely to adapt to its use quickly.”
•  Business Application Research Center ranked QlikView #1 for Ease of Use and Customer Loyalty in its BI Survey 8 – the world’s largest independent survey of Business Intelligence and Performance Management users. QlikView received top honors in Benefits Achieved, Inclination to Buy More and Lowest Consulting Spend.

“These results consistently show that the QlikView customer experience sets a new bar in business intelligence,” said Stuart Barnard, Managing Director at Inside Info, Master Reseller of QlikView in Australia. “One which includes rapid time to value; custom dashboards with Google-like ease of use; minimal professional services; and fast query performance, even on very large data sets.”

[2] IDC White Paper sponsored by QlikTech, “The TCO of BI: The QlikView Customer Experience, Doc # IDCWP16R, October 2009

[3] IDC White Paper sponsored by QlikTech, “Success and Value from BI: The QlikView Customer Experience, Doc # IDCWP16R2, October 2009

 The use of expressions can be intensive in QlikView, especially when having a sophisticated user interface. There is a growing need to handle these expressions in a more efficient way, and this can be accomplished by the use of variables.

 Reasons for holding expressions in variables:

• To achieve reuse: the formula for a measure such as Sales usually remains the same across a QlikView document, so it doesn’t make sense to write it on every chart.
• To enforce consistency in the formulas: by avoiding the risk of having different formulas that calculate the same measure.
• To provide an single point to apply changes: if and when a formula needs to be changed, you only need to change one variable and all the charts and other objects that refer to that variable will follow.
• To allow the end user to make changes through an input box, when needed. This could be the case of targets for KPIs or general parameters.

Variables can be created manually by going to the menu Settings / Variable Overview or by using the SET/LET statements in the script. They have a name and a value, which can hold any sort of strings or numbers, and they can be used as a reference from every sheet object. The Input Box is the object designed to show variables in the user interface.

If you want to start experimenting with moving your expressions to variables try the following:

1. Go to the Expressions tab on one of your charts and copy one of the formulas, for instance Sum(SalesValue)
2. Go to the menu Settings / Variable Overview and click on the “Add” button to create a variable. Give it a name such as vFormulaSales (it is a best practice to have all variable names starting with a v to help differenciate them from Fields).
3. Select your variable from the variable list an paste the formula from the chart in the “Definition” text box.  If the formula starts with an = sign, remove it. Finally click on “OK” to save the changes.
4. Go back to the Expressions tab of your chart properties and replace the formula with the following: $(vFormulaSales)

 The $ sign expansion indicates the string contained in the variable is a formula that needs to be calculated.

The final step is to replace the cloned formulas in all the other objects so they all refer to the same formula contained in the new variable.  Every new object that needs to show Sum(Sales) should also refer to the variable.

 You may already have quite a few QlikView business analysis documents where you didn’t apply this practice, but it’s never too late to get started.  In the long term it’s really worth it.

Inside Info, Australia’s master reseller of the world’s fastest growing business intelligence software QlikView, has appointed specialist partner, Markinson, an Australian provider of enterprise management and point-of-sale software solutions, to extend existing reach into retail and wholesale companies.

Markinson which counts JB Hi-Fi, T2, Haigh Australia and Rexel among its customers, will resell QlikView to provide its customer base with access to powerful and instant visual analysis, dashboards and reporting of stock, sales, financial and marketing data with measurable ROI in just weeks.

QlikView analyses hundreds of millions of cells of data at a transactional level in seconds, irrespective of the number of users, offering Markinson customers a highly scalable business intelligence solution that is simple to use for any employee of wholesale distribution and retail businesses across Australasia.

“We’ve used QlikView to power reporting for our retail management solution, Shopkeeper, for some time and have now taken this to a new level.  QlikView will also be used to complement our MomentumPro enterprise management solution which is why we sought to extend our relationship with QlikView and Inside Info.  Customers can now reap the benefits of one-click analytics without the cost and complexity of traditional BI software,” said Ian Whiting, CEO at Markinson.

“We’re excited to have Markinson as part of our local QlikView partner program,” said Stuart Barnard, Managing Director at Inside Info.  “More than 500 retailers and distributors use QlikView globally because it provides simple access to a rich, interactive  and holistic view of demand and supply metrics and performance.    Sales, inventory and management dashboards can be custom- built and modified in weeks designed to help retailers and wholesalers make faster, more informed decisions.”

QlikTech has underlined a major commitment to servicing the Greater China market lead by Shanghai-based Master Reseller Commit Info, who will be launching the Chinese version of QlikView into the region.

Strategic agreement has also been reached with Kingdee Software, a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software Company headquartered in Shenzhen, who posseses the largest number of users in China.   Kingdee selected QlikView to be integrated into the business intelligence module of its K/3 ERP standard edition system, to provide its customers with the most powerful business information analysis tools. As the number one supplier of ERP to small to medium enterprises for the past four years (according to IDC) Kingdee’s 600,000 customers and 1,100 partners create a powerful network. A number of Kingdee customers purchased QlikView immediately after the announcement of its availability.

“We are thrilled to unveil major initiatives in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan that we believe will quickly make QlikView an important force in Greater China. With the traditional players lacking QlikView’s associative capabilities and rapid time to value, we expect to win business from companies that have been ill-served by their current solutions and are fed up with failed and expensive attempts to implement BI,” said Lars Bjork, CEO of QlikTech. “QlikView now offers companies of all sizes in Greater China a whole new class of BI software so they can get to the answers they need quickly, and have the flexibility to make the strategic changes that will sustain their business for competitive advantage. The era of antiquated, hard-to-use BI software is coming to an end.”

QlikTech has over 40 customers in Greater China in many sectors, including food and beverage, financial services, logistics, government and public sector, manufacturing, media, pharmaceutical, real estate, retail and trading. Current customers include CTR, Homemart, Little Sheep, Sidel, Bank of China and Zhonghai Fund Management Co. Ltd.

Simply right click on an expression in QlikView under the expressions tab of the object properties window, select copy, right click in the space beneath the last expression and select paste… This can be done within the same object or the expression can be pasted into a different object.

I know it doesn’t sound like the labour saving tip you were possibly expecting BUT the expression will copy all of the number, presentation, visual cues and other formatting which will save a huge amount of re-clicking and effort.

As an example:

You have a complex set analysis expression for sales quantity and want to create one for order quantity. The only difference will be the field name so why not copy the whole expression and simply change the fieldname. You know the formula works and now you don’t even have to think about the formatting as it’s all done for you…

The smallest things make the biggest differences!

Phil Langdale, Services Director for Australia’s QlikView Master Reseller, Inside Info, will explore these issues at this year’s Queensland Supply Chain and Logistics Conference on 27 August at the Sofitel Hotel in Brisbane.    In particular, Phil will share why and how organisations like Amcor, Manassen Foods and Fujitsu General have moved to a business intelligence delivery strategy using QlikView business analysis software that simplifies the business itnelligence user experience, empowering users to think, navigate, see a result, explore and act all in real time to understand better supply chain performance, service levels, productivity, inventory and costs.